


All Grown Up Again

by perfect_cadence (Perfect_Cadence)



Series: A Small Problem [2]
Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: Aftermath of being deaged, Ignis is mortified
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-12-28
Updated: 2017-12-28
Packaged: 2019-02-23 01:25:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 713
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13179432
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Perfect_Cadence/pseuds/perfect_cadence
Summary: Filling a prompt which requested the aftermath of de-aging





	All Grown Up Again

When he’d woken up, snuggled up in bed next to Gladio and _sucking his thumb_ , Ignis had thought he might expire from sheer mortification. He hadn’t done that in years! His mother had been sure to break him of the habit before he’d been sent off to Insomnia, although the first few months, when he’d been so frightened and homesick that he’d cried himself to sleep almost every night he’d found himself doing it again as a means of comfort. That was over fifteen years ago now though!  
  
Tugging the digit free at once, he only barely stifled a groan as the memories of the last few days began to resurface.  
  
“Well, I guess we know how you got an overbite, huh? Never had you down as a thumb sucker,” asked a voice, gently amused, and Ignis realised Cor was still with them. Gods, could this get any worse?! He went to scramble out of bed, but the second he tried to stand up, the room spun alarmingly and he was forced to sit back down. He realised his head was pounding.  
  
Cor was beside him in an instant, and put a hand on his forehead. Ignis wanted to shy away from the cold touch and only just refrained from twisting his head away like a child.  
  
“Shit, you’re burning up!” said Cor worriedly. “Get back into bed.”  
  
“I’m fine, Cor, I…” Ignis began, but he was cut off.  
  
“Get back into bed _right now_ , Ignis Scientia!” Cor ordered sternly.  
  
Perhaps whatever it was that had changed them wasn’t fully out of his system, because found himself obeying the stern command at once, and his hand was halfway to his mouth before he caught himself.  
  
Cor seemed to understand he wasn’t fully himself yet because he reached down gently and stroked his hair. “Good lad,” he said softly. “Back to sleep, now.”  
  
Ignis had very little awareness of the two days that followed. He and Gladio both fought a raging fever as the magic slowly made its way out of his their blood streams. Cor and Prompto pressed cold, damp cloths to their foreheads, forced them to drink water and tried to get them to eat something. Ignis came to on at least one occasion and found he was sucking his thumb again and on another he found that the chocobo plush had been tucked in beside him.  
  
Gods, what an awful week! Bad enough being reduced to a three year old for several days, but to then end up so dreadfully pathetic as an adult too was mortifying! The more he thought about it, as the fever cleared, the more Ignis’s embarrassment skyrocketed. Used to being, if not the oldest in the group, then at least the most controlled, being a child had stripped away every inch of his carefully constructed composure. He felt raw.  
  
The very second he was allowed out of bed, once Noctis and Cor went on a grocery run, he sped over to the hotel bathroom and locked himself in. He turned the shower on and stepped inside, groaning as the avalanche of memories of being three a second time slammed into him.  
  
He’d clung to Prompto like a limpet, snuggling into the man’s arms at every chance he got. Prompto had spent hours playing with him and the chocobo he’d given him, showing infinite patience and smiling at his nonsensical childish babbling. When Ignis had been so frightened by the sabretusks that he’d wet himself – his eyes clenched shut in shame at the too-clear memory of sodden pants and the fear he would be punished for his accident – Prompto had been the one to change him and clean him up, snuggling him and rocking him till he’d calmed. He’d never once seemed irritated, though Ignis knew he must have been a clingy nuisance.  
  
He’d been so gentle and affectionate that it made tears come to Ignis’s eyes.  
  
Thank goodness that Noct had proved so awful with children! Ignis couldn’t have borne it if the charge he’d spent practically all his life looking after had had to do the same to him. Bad enough with Prompto. And Cor…  
  
Ignis let his head fall against the tiles with a thud. Shiva on a fucking stick, he’d called Cor _Daddy_!


End file.
